LAS VEGAS -- I want to noodle a bit about the Start Experience in Windows Phone 7 series, but before that happens I need to get something off my chest as a way of opening the conversation: I have an unhealthy obsession with notifications in Windows Phone 7 Series. There are two reasons for this.

The first and most important reason is that Microsoft is following Apple's cue by suggesting push notifications can replace functionality normally handled by third-party multitasking. If you remove the ability to multitask, you better make damn sure that your push notification replacement system works well.

The second is that we already have two mobile operating systems that do an excellent job handling notifications -- Android and webOS. Both allow notifications to appear without interrupting you, both let notifications "stack," and both offer a unified place to view and manage your notifications. Knowing that there are two systems out there for handling notifications well makes me want to see a similarly elegant system from Microsoft. Despite what I wrote in a recent tweet, WP7S does have a way to manage (some) notifications -- but it's going to require a shift in how users think about their messages.

Read on for more on notifications and how they relate to Start.

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We've gathered a bit more information on how push notifications on Windows Phone 7 series work. The notifications will come from Microsoft via a service offered free to developers. Our big question, though, was what the user experience will be like. From what we can tell, it will be "mixed' (pardon the pun).

Microsoft tell us that there won't be a "notification management app," which is to say that how notifications will surface is apparently going to differ app-by-app and user by user. Microsoft focused on the fact that many (or most) of the hubs will have a 'What's New' section where you'll be able to see new alerts. Hubs/apps that you've promoted to the Start screen will naturally display notifications in live tiles. Beyond that, though, it doesn't sound like we'll have an similar to Android or webOS, where you'll be able to see all your missed notifications and alerts in one place. We'll see if we're misinterpreting that when we speak with Microsoft one-on-one later.

On the bright side, from the demo we watched during the keynote today, it doesn't appear that notifications are 'interruptive,' so they won't force you to act on them before you get back to the work you're currently doing on the phone.

Although the LG eXpo is a very capable device (see full review), in fact it's one of my favorites right now, it does have some ... quirks.

One of those, and we're not joking, is no email notifications. That is, there is no listing under Settings --> Sounds & Notifications for email or even SMS, for that matter.

We're not sure why that is the case, or how that passed AT&T's testing, but it is what it is and needless to say...it's annoying. (We even had a question on during the last podcast),

To address this, I threw together the registry entries to bring back SMS and Email notifications as I know this bothers quite a few folks out there, myself included. This will enable sound, vibrate, pop-up and even LED support on the eXpo for SMS and Email.

Simply use Microsoft Tag to scan and download the .cab to your device, run it, soft reset and you're good to go. Or you can just click and download directly here. Enjoy!

If rule No. 1 in business is "Location, location, location," rule No. 2 should be "Your butt better be on time."

Consider the following:

You're on your way to an important meeting full of important people, but there's just no way you're going to get there on time. If only there were a way to discretely — or, not so discretely — let a colleague know you're on your way, but running late.

Enter "Oops, I'm Late", which uses your GPS (built-in or Bluetooth) to determine if you're going to make it to your appointment on time. It's recently been updated Version 1.2.2 with support for Twitter and Facebook, and it's now available for free, if you don't mind putting up with some third-party advertising.

More on the application, those third-party ads, pricing options and our (brief) concerns after the jump.

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Many of us use the built in email client on Windows Mobile but sometimes we get creative. Sometimes we venture out and decide to download Java and the Gmail app along with it. Then we have full access to our email. All the beauty of archive, threaded email, contacts, and search is at our finger tips. Yet it still lacks something. It lacks alerts. Unfortunately at the moment there is no way to be alerted from the Java Gmail app when a new email has arrived.

So today we will be demonstrating a temporary fix.

The first thing that you are going to want to do is go into your Gmail settings. Click on forwarding. Then click on the button that says “Forward a copy of incoming mail to”. Here’s the tricky part. You have to know you phone number email so to speak. For at&t it’s the number@txt.att.net so for example 5551112222@txt.att.net (In order to find your phone numbers email address just send a text to your email and it will display it.) Then sit back and watch your emails come to you in a text. It’s not the best and a little garbled but at least it’s a notification allowing you to go into your Java Gmail to check your email and react accordingly. Voila notifications for your Java Gmail via text.

Let us know if this helps or if you prefer to have IMAP.